Friday, October 14, 2011

Knowing Autism Symptoms and Treatments

Autism Symptoms And Treatments

Among all the autism symptoms, the most general one being weak or stereotyped in communication and social skills. Some less common symptoms are mental issues, gastrointestinal problems or seizure disorders. Even though there are some having no difficulty in oral skills but fail in small talk or conversation. Next, they have sensory and motor issues. Most often are irritable to light, noise, crowds and other stimulation.

Hence, it is common to see autistic kids covering ears, react negatively to certain lit areas, etc. Usually autistic kids have weak fine and gross motor skills in their early stage, that is mostly reflected in their poor performance in sport or athletic activities, especially in their poor handwriting. Another syndrome is they are likely to involve in repetitious and ritualized activities, for example lining toys in a straight line, as well as having inadequate or few passionate interests, opt for activities that involves reduced verbal communication.

In this modern day, there are many proven & trustworthy alternatives available for autism symptoms and therapies, though they may not give the same consequence. The following gives the most prevailing and proven approaches:

- Physical Therapy- identical to OT, is helpful in building or toning their muscles to conquer their fine and gross motor shortcoming;

- Visually-based approach- this is one method helping to teach skills and communication involving picture-based communication, such as PECS, video communication system since most autistic kids have powerful picture memory;

- ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis)- out of all the approaches, this is the conventional and most safe or researched, it is more of an exhaustive coaching to teach or learn particular skills;

- Speech therapy- this is contemplated to be beneficial for autistic kids as most encounter problem in verbal and communication skills, particularly to the use of speech in building social relationship;

- Social Skills Therapy- this teaches them skills in communication as well as social intercommunication while playing or communicating among a group of kids;

- Biomedical treatment- this is very much based on DAN! Approach since they have the most exhaustive research.

This involves prescribing special diets such as GFCF (gluten-free, casein-free), supplements (such as vitamins and nutrition), and other alternative treatments. Though their approaches are not all accepted by FDA or CDC, they have quite a big support from parents of autistic kids.

- OT (Occupational Therapy)- this is particularly target on acquiring living skills and conquer sensory issues since most are weak in fine and gross motor skills

To gain more positive result among all the above available autism treatments, it is better to adopt a combination rather than a specific single approach.